David Farland - The Wyrmling Horde

"That is certainly the way that she feels about us. "

"Or perhaps," Erringale said, "the Great Wyrm herself cannot resist its allure!"

"Aaaaah," Sisel said, smiling at the thought. "I see several reasons for the Great Wyrm to destroy it, but that most of all rings true."

Erringale wondered aloud. "I don t know. I m not sure that I understand. The Great Wyrm tried to kill the tree, and now she holds the Torch-bearer captive-the only man alive who might have the skill to bind the worlds. It sounds almost as if she is trying to keep him from binding the worlds together at all."

Sisel had no answer to that. The workings of the mind of the Great Wyrm were devious.

Erringale swung his mattock a few more times; then Sisel bit into the ground with his spade.

In a moment, in the darkness, Sisel reached down into the dirt and pulled out his prize-a tiny knot from the taproot, twisted and malformed. It easily fit into the palm of his hand.

Sisel quickly took it to the gargoyle fountain and let clear water run over it. Afterward he held it up in the starlight and inspected it.

"The rot runs through and through," he said, his voice filled with dismay.

Erringale peered at it doubtfully. "Are you certain?"

"I m certain," Sisel said. "The sorcerer who cast this spell was powerful indeed. There is nothing here to be saved." He tossed the root to the ground, shoved it into the loose soil with his heel, and peered up at the tree.

Erringale stood for a moment, his heart breaking. "Is there nothing you can do?"

"I suppose," Sisel said, "that the Earth Spirit will provide a new tree when the time is right. All that we can do is wait."

Erringale said softly, "But we have waited for a thousand thousand years for the tree to be reborn!"

"You will have to wait a little longer. Even if one does come again, how do we know that it will not be destroyed in like manner?"

Erringale peered into the wizard s eyes in the soft evening glow, lit by stars and a new rising moon. The Wizard Sisel thought that he saw a hardness growing in Erringale s eyes that he had not witnessed before.

I wonder what it would be like, the wizard thought, if Erringale goes to war. What powers would he bring to bear? What arms might he muster? What allies can he command?

"There is an evil brewing here beyond the understanding of men," Erringale said. "But I mean to find out what is going on."

Rhianna sped across the miles, flying with all haste. She kept an eye out for Vulgnash, and watched his gray cloud on the horizon. She reached Beldinook before sundown, the castle s white towers and ramparts gleaming like fiery coral in the setting sun.

Rhianna flew straight to the palace, and found the horse-sisters facilitators taking the last of the endowments. Their thousand forcibles were nearly gone.

Standing among the crowds in the town square Rhianna made a heartfelt appeal.

"People of Beldinook," she said, "I must go to Rugassa in all haste. Give me your metabolism, I beg of you, not for my sake, or the sake of the man I love, but for your own sakes, for your children, your families, and your kingdom.

"If I fail, the sacrifice that you make will not be for long-an hour at the most.

"But if I succeed, minstrels shall make a song of it, and your names shall be sung forever!"

She did not have to say more. She had taken so many endowments of glamour that she probably had not needed to speak. She had taken enough endowments of voice that her words smote the potential Dedicates and softened their hearts.

"I will be pleased, milady," a young man cried out, and soon a dozen people were offering similar thoughts. Rhianna did not wait for the endowments. She nodded to her facilitator, then went to the great room for dinner.

She was famished. She had flown four hundred miles in hours, and though she had the brawn and stamina and metabolism to meet such a goal, she did not do it without a price.

Her body seemed to have dropped twenty pounds during the day. Much of it had been sweat, she was sure, but she could clearly see the bones in her wrists, white and protruding through the skin.

So she fed, eating as much as her stomach could hold, drinking until she felt well.

Then she burst into the sky and went winging toward Rugassa at a more relaxed pace.

She had a problem: Vulgnash.

How will I get past him? she wondered. With the facilitators vectoring metabolism to her, she would be faster than he.

But will I be fast enough? she wondered.

She had no choice but to risk it.

So she flew over the darkening lands, her wings flapping steadily. She crossed a river, gleaming silver in the starlight. Great flocks of bats had flown up from the trees along the river s bank, and now they dipped and skimmed the water for drinks.

Rhianna dropped and tried it, surprising herself when water sprayed up and splashed her face and the front of her tunic. She could taste grit and bugs in the water.

I have become a bat, she thought.

Then she hurried on toward Rugassa, and the world seemed to slow even further as endowment after endowment of metabolism was added to her. At last Rugassa s dark cone rose up in the starlight, black and foreboding.

The wyrmlings will be awake, Rhianna thought. They ll be at their most active. Perhaps I should wait until tomorrow.

But she dared not wait. With every passing minute, the enemy would be taking more endowments, becoming stronger.

So she winged above the plains surrounding Rugassa at night, and saw the land filled with wyrmlings-troops by the tens of thousands marching to war, great armies of hunters heading out with wagons to harvest meat, loggers and miners and who knew what else-hundreds of thousands of wyrmlings toiling in a great mass.

She hurtled toward her entrance at two hundred miles per hour, a blinding blur. Many a wrymling looked up to behold a flash of red in the night sky, crimson wings and a blood-red cloak-just a lone Knight Eternal flying to his tower. It was a sight that they had seen a thousand times.

With so many endowments of wit, she did not have to hunt for the entrance. She knew where it lay.

She hit the airshaft and eeled down headfirst, then opened her wings wide as she plummeted the last few yards to the floor of the coliseum.

Wyrmlings working in the arena seemed astonished by the sight, but Rhianna s hood was pulled tight and she whisked out through the exit, following the sandalwood-scented trail of Kirissa at a dead run.

With twenty endowments of metabolism, Rhianna was but a blur, a crimson figure with vast wings racing down the tunnel at nearly a hundred miles per hour.

I have taken my death in taking so many endowments of metabolism, she thought. In four more seasons, I will die of old age.

But she could not mourn her fate. She had chosen it, and it was only her endowments of metabolism that might allow her to rescue Fallion.

She could have gone faster, but she found that her momentum made it hard to turn corners, so she kept her speed low.

She found surprisingly few wyrmlings in the hallways. Perhaps it was too early for some of them, or perhaps they were already working.

But as she passed each one, Rhianna made sure to do no harm. She would duck past one, leap over others. Those who saw her did not have time to react.

She heard wyrmlings roar in blind challenge on several occasions, but Kirissa had taught her a couple of curses. Rhianna found that when she roared a curse and raised her wings, the wyrmlings often fell over themselves in their haste to make room.